Back to work. For some anyway.

So, with Robin being re-acquainted with Arup  there hasn't been a lot for me to do, other than the afore mentioned retail therapy and some 'house keeping'. 

Yesterday (Wednesday) I visited Kings Cross, the red light district of Sydney. No, I don't have an unfulfilled desire to become a lap dancer; in a multi level car park is the 'backpackers car market' and I went to suss out the process for selling beloved Tara the Toyota Torago. It seems that it is a bad time of year to sell as many travellers are heading back to Europe for the summer,  but given that we won't be asking as much as the other vans on sale we might get lucky.  The market is one of the few places that it is possible to sell a vehicle that's registered 'out of state', in our case, Queensland rather than New South Wales. This might also go in our favour, as those backpackers remaining may well be heading up to the 'top end' for the much warmer winter weather. We'll see.

The walk to Kings Cross was nice as I after passing through the CBD I walked through The Domain and into Wooloomooloo where there is another harbour, this time with naval ships docked. A walk up some stairs (Sydney is surprisingly hilly) and I found myself on Victoria St., all leafy with many outwardly intact original victorian era terraced houses with typical corrugated roofs and pretty wrought iron balconies and verandahs.  This took me up to the main drag of Kings Cross, a much less attractive stretch of strip joints and 'adult' shops, with several groups of drunks inhabiting the entrances in the lurching manner I'm more used to seeing in London's Kings Cross or Camden Town. (Ah, how I miss home now...).

Before getting to the car market I made a pit stop at a tiny cafe to get a coffee (as required once a day). I didn't notice the east asian lady sat in the corner window seat as I went in until I heard a 'cooee' as she called out to the old man proprietor. "Gosh she's a bit glamorous" was my first thought as I took in her fuscia coloured trilby style hat, "my, what a lot of knitting" was my second as I surveyed the balls of yarn and several knitted articles spread about the table. My third thought  was: "She's not  lady. She's a man. Or is she? He?" I really couldn't be certain weather or not the vision before me was a granny, or a tranny. There seemed to be bumps in the right places to suggest the first, but the camp sounding voice and the quite large hands suggested the last or maybe s/he was less ambiguously a transsexual who just likes knitting. Who knows?!

Robin had a good day at work.

 

Hannah

Settling into Sydney

Lane Cove is a gem, so close to the CBD yet in the middle of (yet another) National Park.We awoke to the sound of pouring rain and slowly got ourselves together enough to drive into the city centre, thanks to the power of a tea made in the camp kitchen.  

Driving over the Harbour Bridge is incredible, with fab views in all directions. Shame about the weather.  Once in town we found a parking space at a price that could almost rival meter prices in London ($4.40/hr how much? ouch!) and picked up the keys to the apartment from the Arup office. A very short walk later - 2 minutes, if that - we were outside the apartment building of 187 Kent St.  Robin has no excuses for being late to work then.

Up to level 3, and into apt. 308. Well, calling it an apartment is a bit ambitious. A well equipped and smartly turned out studio flat is more of an accurate description. And it has a washing machine and tumble dryer. Wooo. (After camping, these little things are elevated to luxury status, believe me!).

The studio flat is only a few minutes walk from almost all the major attractions in the city centre. The Harbour Bridge is 10 minutes away in the historical and picturesque Rocks area (but sadly you can't see it from the studio's balcony).  Circular Quay where the old fashioned looking ferries depart is also only 10 minutes away and the Opera House a few minutes further on from there (unfortunately this area is also obscured from view by the towering office blocks). Darling Harbour is behind the apartment building (but you can't see that either, unless you go down to the gym on level one and take a swim....and it's just as well there is a gym as little exercise will be gotten on the way to the office!) which is another great place for a stroll.  However, there is a great view of the freeway. And some office buildings. And at night the odd bat flies past.

 

The rest of Friday, in the intermittent rain, was spent shopping for required work clothes.  surprisingly not to difficult a task as Myer, the major department store in Australia (somewhere between Selfridges and Debenhams) had everything Robin wanted. Phew!

Saturday and Sunday were spent visiting Paddington Market, shoe shopping, visiting Darling Harbour and the Sydney Fish Market, eating lots of yummy sushi and cupcakes (not at the same time), drinking flat white coffees, trouser shopping, and walking through the Botanical Gardens (where there are literally hundreds of enormous bats hanging upside down from the trees). Oh, and more clothes shopping!

Finally all this clothes shopping for Robin's work clothes got the better of me. Especially when he bought a rather natty uniform style jacket that he wore that evening, making me feel dreadfully scruffy in the same hoodie that I've been wearing for 5 months. So, on Monday I went and did a little retail therapy of my own. And feel much better for it, even if what I bought may not be terribly useful in the current Delhi heatwave!

Munched by a marsupial

So after Woolgoolga we drove south, planning to stop somewhere on the coast before reaching Sydney. It was Thursday, and we had arranged to pick up the key to the apartment that Arup had organised for me on the Friday. The plan was then to spend the weekend in the city buying clothes before starting work in the Sydney office on the Monday. Somehow I thought that the backpacker clobber I had been wearing since the 30th November probably wouldn't quite cut it in the office, no matter how relaxed the place seemed to be.

We had been tipped off by Naomi & co about 'Fredo's Pies', a pie shop on the main road south near a typical nowhere town called Kempsey. We got there less than two hours after Woolgoolga, just in time for lunch. The reason why we were so keen to stop here was because of the rare chance it offered to eat exotic species in the classic Australian pie format. Well, maybe not that exotic by Australian standards, but the 'croc' pie eaten by Hannah and the 'roo' pie favoured by me were pretty exotic for us.

(Just so you know, the crocodile meat in the pie looks and has the texture of chicken (doesn't all mystery meat?) but was quite fishy. I guess I might have been eating a 'salty'. The Kangaroo was minced and quite rich and tasted much better as a pie than as a 'kanga banga' sausage. Poor skippy.  Hannah)

Another few hours later and we stopped for a coffee at a small town called Bulahdelah. Hmmm, not much going on here. We realised then that although it would mean driving through the dark for an hour or two, we could actually make it to Sydney at not too unreasonable an hour. The freeway took us quickly to the suburbs and we directed the van towards Lane Cove National Park, and the campsite we had used when staying in Sydney previously. Since Woolgoolga we had driven 580km, not far off the distance from London to Edinburgh!

The wildlife at Lane Cove is pretty interesting, and we saw a tiny shy ring-tail possum in a tree, being dazzled by the torch of a park ranger. The bigger brush-tail possums were less shy, nosing around the camp kitchen while we ate our tea.

While sat outside the van playing cards (our favoured game is the traveller's standard - "shithead") another possum nosed around us looking for food scraps. For some reason our toes, poking out of our flip-flops, must have seemed particularly inviting - after sniffing around mine, this mischievous marsupial actually bit Hannah's toe. No blood, and tetanus jobs up to date, so no dramas, as they say here.

Robin

I really like possums, but I didn't  expect to be munched by a marsupial.

Hannah

Big Wednesday

With all the children orientated activities on offer at the Big 4 campsite it was high time that the adults got to have some fun. A 'phone call to Harpo's Surf School and we were all set with surf lessons for 4 adults organised.  Big Wednesday here we come!

We met Harpo at Woolgoolga, a small town just a couple of miles up the road (where we had visited a beachside market a few days before), feeling a little nervous. We eyed the (gentle) waves with suspicion.

We needn't have worried. Naomi and I had the first one hour lesson, and after covering necessary safety issues mostly concerning the rips or under tows, which are common and strong on most Australian beaches, we worked on the technique of hopping onto the board.  We now know that if we get caught in a rip we should stay calm, and either swim across it, or let them carry you out into the sea from where you can swim back in safely (given the 2 shark attacks on the gold coast recently I wouldn't have fancied the latter option).  We also know how to grab the sides of the board, and hoik ourselves up to a standing position that looks like a passable surfing pose. Sounds simple, but there is a lot to think about. Going from lying on your tummy to standing up with your hips and body facing in one direction while looking straight ahead is not quite as easy as you might think, even on the little tiddler waves we were 'catching'.

Naomi, who was outwardly the most nervous amazed herself by managing to stand up on the very first 'white  wave' and I managed to stand up on the second one I 'caught'.

Saying 'caught' makes it sound like we actively selected our wave, paddled out in front of it, then grabbed the 'rails' (we know all the lingo now) and pulled ourselves up all of our own accord....but no, the first few we managed to 'ride'  were more a case of us lying flat on our tums while Harpo pushed us off in the right direction when a suitably tame broken wave was coming our way. We did have to stand up on our own though.  Only one proper wipe out was suffered by Naomi, but as much time was spent falling off the board as it was riding the 'gnarly' waves.

It was fantastic fun, made even more enjoyable by the fact that Naomi and I had grasped the basics easily and were able to find our balance and ride one white wave after another, even managing towards the end, to paddle and catch our own waves. Harpo was impressed and said that we had set quite a high bench mark for the boys to reach......awesome!

Hannah

P.S.  Harpo, our instructor, was a great teacher and was encouraging and helpful all the way. How he can tell that the reason you fell off was because your foot was facing the wrong way etc I can only guess is because 10 years as a pro surfer means that he knows a thing or two. Highly recommended.

OK so now it was the boys' turn. Andrew and I had patiently watched the girls' lesson while minding the kids and were very impressed with their success. Two parallel thoughts ran through our heads: the first was "that looks easy!", so settling our nerves a little, but then the other thought was something along the lines of "oh crap, they're really good at this, we'll never match that!" - which made the nerves worse. So, we donned the too-small, soaking wet, rash vests that the girls had just used, and went through the safety issues and technique points on the beach, before 'hitting the waves' (man).

We soon discovered that this surfing lark probably wasn't quite as easy as the girls had made it look - standing up on the board on the beach was easy, but once in the water Andrew and I both had a tendency to forget all that, compounded by what must be for both of us a natural lack of balance. After inventing my own move, known as the Woolgoolga washing machine, and practicing it several times, I did eventually manage to stand up and travel a short distance towards the beach, and repeat this feat enough times to allow Hannah to get at least one photo to prove it.

Andrew meanwhile was having less luck, although he did manage to get up and stay up a few times, but not enough for Hannah to get a decent photo to prove it. For both of us, continually over- or under-balancing, then flopping into the shallow water, was getting quite tiring, but it was still enormous fun and Harpo remained encouraging and helpful throughout.

At the end of the lesson we thanked Harpo before Hannah bounded up to me and practically demanded that we have another lesson before continuing our drive south towards Sydney. Fortunately Harpo was free at 10am the next day, so we booked it immediately. Big Wednesday was thus followed by Medium-size Thursday (because there were only two of us doing the lesson, not four). Hannah continued to do well, and even I managed to improve, graduating from the Woolgoolga washing machine to the Woolgoolga belly-flop manoeuvre.

After that we left Woolgoolga and headed south, with a vague plan to stop somewhere before Sydney when we got tired. To be continued...

Robin

Lazy days at Emerald Beach

Having endured our soaking at Byron for three nights, it was time to head back down the New South Wales coast, with the ultimate goal of Sydney, where I am to start work on the 21st April (we had received word that my working visa had been approved in a record time of three weeks while we were in Broken Hill). But first, we had arranged to meet up again with the Healys. Coffs Harbour turned out to be the most convenient place for their northward journey to coincide with our southward run, and we all checked in to a holiday park at a place called Emerald Beach, about 18km north of Coffs.

Right behind the beach, this holiday park turned out to be one of the best places we stayed in the whole of Australia! We booked three nights and ended up staying six. Best of all (for the Healys especially) the staff organised activities for the numerous kids roaming around the place (it is the school holidays right now) so giving the adults a bit of space. It would be misleading to say that Emerald Beach, or even Coffs Harbour, is the most exciting of places, but frankly that didn't matter. Everyone was relaxed and happy, with warm weather, a surf beach, and a bottle-o within walking distance.

Robin

The bottle-o or bottle shop is one of the curious things in Australia.  Supermarkets don't sell booze but the bottle-o does, like the 'offie' at home. Bottle shops are often attached to the local hotel,which is not usually a hotel as we would know it, but a pub. A pub with less atmosphere that is.  Within the hotel there is an area for gambling with many flashing gambler machines or pokies and some form of racing on the big screen t.v. (greyhound, pony and trap, horse racing). Or a rugby match, or a beach volleyball match, or any other sport you can think of. Often the bottle-o is one that you can drive through, meaning you can pull up to the forecourt so that you can easily load up your car with a block or a slab of stubbies (bottles or cans of lager).  I find the notion of a drive-thru off licence bizarre when you consider that Australia has quite a problem with drink driving, especially in the rural areas. However, driving through to the bottle-o did mean we didn't strain our drinking arms by carrying the slab of lagers and the 5 litre box of chardonnay back to the car. Thank goodness!

Hannah

Another highlight of our time at Emerald Beach was the abundant, and often bizarre, native wildlife. Eastern grey kangaroos live in the nearby Moonee Beach Nature Reserve, yet we were surprised to see quite so many on our wanderings, and especially so when we saw one grazing close to our van site. Better still, while we watched this 'roo grazing away, another one hopped up alongside the van, turned, and then hopped past the front bumper and off into the bush. The grazing roo then made a noise that made it sound like it was a bit miffed, then hopped off in pursuit. And then a possum popped up in the tree!

Other wildlife included a snake that the Healys found roaming their veranda (someone said 'oh, it's OK, it was only a carpet python' - not venomous but hardly a relieving thought!) and an echidna (like a marsupial hedgehog) on the path to the beach. And a couple of times we spotted an enormous goanna scuttling in the bush and climbing a tree. This enormous lizard was about 2m long and looked big enough to eat us. We paid it due respect.

Today is our last day at Emerald Beach, and we have booked introductory surfing lessons for this afternoon. Today is thus christened 'Big Wednesday'. Watch this space!

Robin

Back to Byron: Sea, Surf, and torrential rain.

We awoke in Tenterfield on Tuesday morning and it was still cold, although bright, so wasted no time in eating breakfast, re-organising the few things we had unpacked overnight, and moved on. First stop was 30km away at Bald Rock National Park, where we could climb the not-quite accurately named Bald Rock for magnificent views over the surrounding country. (I say not quite accurately named as it has quite a few trees and shrubs on it, clinging precariously to cracks in the rock, although most of it is indeed bald). The ascent was steep but the views were worth it, especially with the odd textures and colours of the rock (Australia's second largest monolith after Uluru) in the foreground. As we hadn't made it to Uluru on this trip, we were glad we had chalked up at least one monolith at last.

On the way down a few spots of rain came down, and by the time we got back to the van the rain had truly started - there seldom seems to be anything subtle about the rain in Australia - it pretty much seems to either be on or off. So off we drove back towards the coast, crossing the high country of the Great Dividing Range on the way. We stopped for lunch at a well-hidden rest stop at a clearing in amongst the high rainforest where it was freezing cold and drizzly. Not a good sign.

The rain slackened off after that until we turned off the Pacific Highway just outside Byron Bay, and the heavens opened. However when we parked up at the shorefront it had stopped, and we celebrated our return to the seaside after spending more than two weeks inland either to, from, or in, the outback.

We set up camp at the same place we had stopped before, and even erected our tarpaulin 'awning' just in case. How smug we were as it held off the light rain while we ate our dinner underneath! But then I heard a loud rumble coming from the rooftops of the buildings nearby. "is that... rain?" I asked Hannah, and the rumble got louder and closer. A few seconds later, a downpour of biblical proportions was upon us and we madly tried to push the ponding rainwater off the tarp. However the storm got the better of us, as we noticed that the soft ground was not holding the pegs down sufficiently, and fearing a peg flying off and through someone's window we quickly collapsed the tarp and poles and shoved them under the van. The ground had become a swamp by then and totally soaked, we climbed in the front seats of the van. Later we went to bed, with the rain still going. That was Tuesday night!

The next morning the weather had miraculously improved to the point that we got in the sea and did some body boarding first thing. But again the rain set in, forcing us indoors to eat a fantastic fish & chip lunch while overlooking the beach. Well, what we could see of it anyway, given the downpour.

Apart from occasional breaks in the weather it pretty much continued like this for the rest of our time in Byron. "What had we done?!" we thought to ourselves, having driven about 1300km from Broken Hill to get here! So instead of hanging around in the rain on Thursday afternoon we took a beautiful drive in the dank, hilly upcountry to Nimbin, the so called "hippy capital of Australia".

It seems there was some kind of freak festival here in the 70s and some of the freaks stayed on, with the result that although around the village there is an emphasis on all things green and creative, the overwhelming characteristic of Nimbin is its attitude to dope smoking. So much so, that despite its hippy credentials, the atmosphere on the main street was downright heavy (man), with crowds of decidedly non-hippy dope dealers hanging out, interrogating passers-by: "smoko?" was their call. In fact it seemed like a sub-tropical version of Camden market, with all that that entails! While having a coffee we saw two families engaged in a fight, and Hannah read in the local paper a letter to the editor stating how one concerned resident couldn't believe that she had seen a woman kneeing another woman in the head, in the street, one Saturday morning. Clearly this was a place with more than its fair share of social problems and we couldn't help but wonder about the effect of all that dope in one place, and the consequent draw (arf) of the place for all sorts of people, hippy or otherwise. Saw some nice parrots, though...

And the next morning we left - suffice to say that our second spell in Byron Bay was not quite as enjoyable as the first!

Robin

Tamworth to Tenterfield

Our night camped in Tamworth was a little chilly but not as cold as some of the evenings we've had recently; it's noticeable that autumn has arrived here in Australia, and the chilliness of the evenings has been a bit of a rude awakening for both of us, having previously laboured under the illusion that it never really gets cold here.

Anyway Tamworth was a pleasant enough place to stop and do some shopping / chores; the smart workers drinking coffee at the pavement cafes were a welcome counter to the general hick-dom evident in some smaller towns further west. We made a stop at the local 'big thing' - the golden guitar, which hilariously was dwarfed by the McDonalds golden arches next door. We took some silly photos and drove on.

Up along the 'New England Highway' we went, running along parallel to the north coast of New South Wales but about 200km inland. The New England Plateau turned out to be a surprisingly pretty part of the country, and as its a bit colder up here due to the plateau's elevation, the autumn colours of the trees were stunning. Armidale was a nice place to stop for lunch of a gourmet pie, eaten while admiring the colonial architecture and ornate wrought iron verandas - it's great where features like this have been preserved; often civic 'development' has seen old buildings like these bulldozed to make way for bland single-storey 'hotel motels' or strip malls.

We got to Tenterfield about 5pm and it was freezing. Only 200km away from Byron Bay and the coast, where we hope it'll be warm enough to get back in the sea for a spot of boogie boarding - we'll let you know!

Robin

East via the Warrumbungles

In Cobar we already noticed that the land around us had become steadily more green and leafy, and it continued in this way as we drove through miles (almost 400km) of farming country to the Warrumbungle National Park. The craggy outcrops of the park loomed in front of us during the last hour of our long drive.

Camping at the national parks has so far turned out to be one of my highlights of our Oz Odyssey. The camp sites are always in very picturesque settings, with plenty of wildlife to at least hear, if not see! Usually we are treated to kookaburras and parrots giving us a dawn chorus, with the latter sounding like squabbling old ladies at high volume.  We have seen possums and foxes while camping, but the Warrumbungles won all prizes in the wildlife spotting awards. Loads of eastern grey kangaroos (living and breathing thankfully) munching on grass and hopping about here and there, not in the least bit bothered by us or any other campers.

The Warrumbungles are a small range of rocky odd shaped hills that are situated in a part of NSW that has exceptionally clear skies, meaning that there is an observatory of world importance located in the national park.  And indeed, when sat around our camp fire and looking skywards we could really appreciate why.  There were millions of stars sparkling away, Patrick Moore would have had an orgasm!

Hannah

Onwards we drove the next day, another 200km or so to the 'country music capital of Australia', Tamworth. Apparently there is a 20m high 'big guitar' here, perhaps we'll go and gawk at it tomorrow. Anyway a big highlight of the drive was found in the small town of Gunnedah, which has one of the healthiest Koala populations anywhere. Indeed the signs welcoming you to Gunnedah even proclaim it the 'Koala capital of the world'. Wonder what the Koalas think. They seemed pretty happy; the staff at the visitor information centre even drew us a map showing several of the resident Koalas' current locations. So map in hand, off we drove through the suburban streets, stopping here and there to look up a gum tree in someone's back garden, spotting koalas dozing in the afternoon sun.

Robin

Broken Hill to Cobar

Leaving Broken Hill, we drove eastwards over 470km to the tiny town of Cobar. We passed through Wilcannia in a matter of minutes, 200km into the drive. It was a bit of an anticlimax, as it didn't look like it had been smashed up, and there weren't hordes of bloodthirsty local aborigines hanging around waiting to pounce.

The drive was quick; there was absolutely nothing to slow us down, driving through the practically featureless yet awesome red landscape of the outback, apart from changing drivers and rest stops. Oh, and the emu, that Hannah spotted on the side of the road just as I had started my first shift of driving that day, and promptly ran across the road, directly in front of us. Although we were doing about 100km/h, we just avoided hitting the stupid thing by braking and praying. Thankfully we didn't have to start counting dead emus for entertainment.

Robin

Into the Outback: Broken Hill

On the Wednesday morning that we left Mildura, the weather had changed: wind and cloud had taken the place of the beautifully clear sunny weather that we had been enjoying, and we took this as a sign to leave. To get to Broken Hill we needed to cross the Murray river, turn left and drive 30km or so to Wentworth, then turn right and keep going for almost 300km. Simple.

We knew that there wouldn't be much on the road between Wentworth and Broken Hill, but we weren't quite mentally prepared for the fact that there would literally be nothing on this stretch of road  (we did pass a herd of emus somewhere along this stretch. H) - although outstations and homesteads were marked on our maps, they were too far from the road to be seen; the only signs that they existed at all were occasional gates in fences and the owners' rudimentary mailboxes. The only place visible from the road, and indeed the only place to stop - was the lonely Coombah roadhouse (claiming to serve the best meals between Wentworth and Broken Hill) where we made the obligatory stop and changed drivers. Buying a cheese and ham toastie and a sandwich there for lunch seemed like the least we could do - it didn't look like the roadhouse made a lot of money.

Robin

Or get a lot of company - the daughter of one of the waitresses clearly wanted someone to play with and promptly had us making 'horsies' out of Plasticine with her!

So, fed and watered off we went. The wind had picked up to a roof rattling gale and the sand blew across the roadhouse forecourt as we pulled out onto the Silver City Highway.  The sky was no longer dark with clouds, more orange and pink from the desert dust that was being whipped up. The following 125km seemed to take forever as the squalling wind buffeted us and the orange dust became heavier. It was a dust storm, not uncommon in the outback apparently, and at times visibility was incredibly poor. A thick orange fog is the best way to describe it, one that made seeing approaching vehicles difficult, even with their head lights on.  This was not quite the 'outback adventure' we had envisioned, not least because we couldn't see any of the vast scenery associated with this aspect of Australia.

A note on car games:  The mechanic in Mildura had warned us to watch out for kangaroos on the Silver City Highway, and after seeing a yellow sign (the first of several) that said "Kangaroos 240km", we had our eyes peeled.  Before the dust storm we counted 17. Dead ones that is.  And by the time we had reached Broken Hill the count had risen to twenty. The dust probably prevented us from seeing many more.  The stipulation for including a carcass in the count was that it had to be recognisable as a 'roo, and not just a skeleton - of which there were far too many to count.  A gruesome game, but there aren't many ways to make a 300km drive fun. And thankfully, given the dust storm, we didn't add any 'roos to the body count ourselves.

Hannah

The dust storm was still going when we got to Broken Hill, so rather than get out and enjoy the apparently spectacular views we went to the airport, which is also one of the bases for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Their tour was very worthy of course, because they do a lot of good work, and we got to go in the hangar and see a couple of the planes. AND we discovered that 'Coopers Crossing' from The Flying Doctors TV series doesn't exist: it was actually filmed in a place called Minyip, which we had driven through on the way to Mildura (In Minyip, signs for 'Coopers Crossing - home of the Flying Doctors' had caused both of us some confusion...)

The morning brought a beautifully clear yet chilly day, and we got even further out back by driving to Silverton, which is practically a ghost town, about 25km away. The Silverton Hotel (the only remaining pub) is famous as an archetypal aussie outback pub and has featured in lots of TV ads and films - Mad Max II was filmed nearby and there was a replica of Mel Gibson's Interceptor car parked out front.

We had to have a beer in the pub - this is pretty much the price for having a nose around. After that we wandered around the remaining stone buildings (including the gaol/town museum) scattered apparently randomly in the bush - the tin and timber shacks and houses that once stood in between having long since vanished. At the nearby Mundi Mundi lookout we looked out (obviously) over a dead-flat plain while dust devils swirled along in the distance. Driving back towards Broken Hill we even saw a herd of camels wandering along in the bush. (And a big lizard. H)

Back in town we drove up to the top of the enormous slag heap looming over the city centre and had a coffee - Broken Hill's raison d'etre is mining, and they've been extracting silver lead and zinc from the ground (the 'line of lode') for 125 years. The Broken Hill that the town is named after has long since disappeared, mined into oblivion, and replaced by the slag heap. Disused mines and equipment are dotted all over town, but a couple of modern operations carry on.

At sunset we again drove a short way out of town to a strange place known as Sculpture Hill, where in 1993 a group of sculptors were invited to camp out and create sculptures from extremely hard rock without power tools. Some of the sculptures are better than others, but the light and the setting made it feel pretty special. (And we saw some kangaroos on the way home- alive this time. H)

Tomorrow (Friday) we plan to start the long drive east. The next town, about 200km away, is Wilcannia. We had thought about staying there for a night, but Hannah has been warned against it by a lady she met here on the campsite who had just driven from that direction. 'Don't even stop there - there's roadhouses either side of town that you can use. The local aborigines have smashed up the town and everything's boarded up' was the advice. Looks like our Outback adventure is just beginning!

Robin

Up to Mildura: back to the warmth!

Our longest day of driving so far in Australia saw us cover over 400km north from the Grampians to the city of Mildura, at the very edge of Victoria state on the banks of the mighty Murray River and the border with New South Wales. I say 'mighty' as that's what the locals say - in truth it's not that wide here and controlled by locks and weirs, so actually pretty languid. This also disguises the fact that the Murray region is in a state of severe drought. But hey, the old paddle steamers doing the rounds of tourist cruises round these parts are a pretty enough sight...

The drive north was interesting for its sheer nothingness. Vast plains of parched and barren farming country gave way only occasionally to tiny villages consisting of a grain silo, a railway siding, and a couple of houses. The slogans of these villages, marked on the signs welcoming the motorists speeding through, got duller and less imaginative as the roads wore north... 'centre of the wheat belt' or simply 'barley country' were both seen more than once. We stopped for rest breaks and to change drivers at the towns of Warracknabeal and Ouyen. On an Autumn Sunday, with everything closed, this was long enough. There is no real Outback inside the state of Victoria but this drive was certainly enough to give us a sense of what to expect beyond Mildura.

Mildura is the biggest place for hundreds of kilometres in any direction: the city boundary is actually over a hundred kilometres out, although the population of the whole region is only about 50,000. Reminding us a little of Mendoza in Argentina, irrigation from the Murray supports citrus farming and viticulture, helped along by the warm climate - yes, we are back in shorts! What a relief after shivering our proverbials off further south. We ended up staying three nights in Mildura, which was longer than expected, as we needed some work done on the van (poor Tara!). However this we did not really mind, as although Mildura is probably not Australia's most exciting city, the locals are friendly (almost everyone has an Italian surname, which probably helps to explain the wine business around here), the campsites are amenable - even providing wireless internet (so explaining the fact that this blog has been updated more quickly than in the past...) and the weather is fab. Evidently autumn is a good time to be here - in summer the place is stifling apparently.

Robin

We are now looking forward to our trip north to Broken Hill. The tourist information pamphlets are filled with photography of beautiful scenery, typical to the 'outback.'  Yes, we are officially going 'outback', as confirmed by the mechanic at the garage. After the usual g'day and 'how you going?' (to which you reply 'fine thanks, how you doing?' he imparted the following wisdom: "Watch out for 'roos. About 150k's from here (Mildura) and you need to take it easy" or word to that effect. "So that's real outback then?" we asked, "yep" was the reply. 

Hannah